Entertainment

YouTuber Alex Day breaks his silence on abuse allegations

Reporter's note: This Q&A was conducted for a longform piece about sexual harassment allegations made against YouTubers. It was a phone interview conducted on June 21, 2016. It has been edited and condensed for publication.

LOS ANGELES — When he was first asked to be interviewed, YouTuber Alex Day politely declined.

"It's always tempting to talk about what happened but I feel like I've said everything I need to about this," he wrote in an email to Mashable in mid-June. "I'm trying to rebuild my life and I worry that the more I talk about this the less likely I am to ever get away from it."

The "this" Day is referring to is allegations made against in him in 2014, when about 14 people — including Day’s ex-girlfriend — claimed the digital influencer behaved inappropriately. Some even said he committed sexual assault.

The 27-year-old, who lives in London, said he didn’t know how to react when the accusations first came out. He wrote a blog called “on mistakes,” which he deleted, as well as “on mistakes 2," a response to his response. Eventually, he gave up and deactivated his Tumblr account.

But Day changed his mind about the interview, and called Mashable to open up about the abuse allegations.

Mashable: It's been two years since these allegations surfaced. How do you feel about everything now?

Day: I have two and half years worth of opinions but I’ve been afraid to say them.

I don’t think anyone is particularly at fault. It was a horrible situation for everyone involved.

I have [a] very existential view of world. I think everyone is ultimately responsible for their own decisions. To me, it feels very inspiring, because I know no matter how many mistakes I made I’m the one in charge of making it right.

It blew up way more than I thought. It went from three people saying things to 13 all being like, 'I thought what we had is consensual but I remember this time six years ago when you tried to kiss me.'

This all happened because people who felt abused and victimized took that power into their own hands and used the internet as their voice.

This is a complex issue, and we are all trying to have a big complicated discussion in an environment where people are quickly getting worked up at small things.

What was the biggest thing you learned from it all? Did you feel like what you did was wrong?

I was a manipulative person and I think I did put pressure on people, although I certainly didn’t see it that way at the time.

A lot [of these interactions] were immoral, because I had a girlfriend at the time. I was a shit person — and have learned to be better.

What I learned from that whole thing is just the fact that if you met in uneven circumstances [like a creator and a fan] that creates an atmosphere that I wasn’t even aware of.

I genuinely didn’t consider myself famous. From my perspective, I just sat in my room and made videos that people liked. Also, the idea of a girl being into me because I make videos in the bedroom is the opposite of everything I’ve even been taught. I didn’t think I was sexy. But the people on the internet didn’t accept that ... they thought how could I possibly not realize I was in the position of power.

For me, it felt like I was just getting a few more followers every single day. I was unchanged.

Why didn't you ever speak out about it?

To an extent of it my side doesn’t even matter. I’m the person with the privilege in this situation.

My opinion doesn’t mean anything because I’m a heterosexual privileged white man. I don’t have a voice in this game. No matter what you say that I’ve said, I don’t think it’s as important to listening to someone who has actually experienced this physical abuse and what they think is best. They are more informed than I am.

If you are getting into a relationship with someone where you put them on a pedestal and they are in a position of power, it doesn’t matter if they realize or not. You have to be aware of that and if you are not, that’s something that’s unfortunate, and can lead to problems.

Now it’s 2.5 years and people say [what I've learned] is not good enough. I’m not trying to do things to gain favor, but it’s sort of like when's the point at which you go, 'I accept this person is ok.'

Whether or not you think it’s deliberate, people can’t understand the idea that I wasn't aware of what I was doing.

I wasn’t deliberately praying on people.

What has life been like after the allegations for you? Do you still talk to people from the Team Internet world?

I got an email from this girl two weeks ago who is 20, I’m 27 now.

And she was like, 'I’ve been meaning to email you for a while, I like your videos. The main reason I’m emailing is because I have two tickets to the Harry Potter Studio Tour and I didn’t know who else to invite and I just thought you might want to come.'

I saw the email a week later. I said that was really cool thanks for thinking of me.

I met up with this girl, right, just to hang out because she sounded cool. We got on fine, I texted her quite a bit. I kept saying, 'I don’t want you to feel like i’m taking advantage.' I was really self conscious about it.

To me she’s just a person I just met, but I was really concerned. She had to keep being like, 'It’s fine, you’re not taking advantage.’

I got a lot of backlash from [the] community, but they just ignore me now. At first, they would all say ‘you’re an awful person you don’t deserve to be on the internet.’

I carried on anyway; I realized there was a lot of chatter but I’d shut my phone off and I would go for a walk. I just kept making videos.

They just stopped watching. Now no one watches my videos.

The community left, and so did any semblance of popularity that I had. I don’t feel like they hate me actively.

I had a dream about a week ago about one of my old best mates. The dream was me trying to tell him my side of what happened, and him not listening. I have a lots of old dreams with old friends in YouTube world.

I had so many close friends, overnight a lot of them turned on me. None of them messaged me first, and asked 'what’s your side?'

To be fair I did release that [explanation] video, where I said, 'How can I make this go away?' A lot of people saw that as acknowledgement. They didn’t take into account any of their experiences with me or ask how I was doing.

I do mind that my videos aren’t as popular. I had this amazing crazy job where i got to make videos for half an hour a week and I get paid like three grand a month. That was the peak of it — the work to money ratio was way off.

What do you think can be done to prevent inappropriate relationships from happening?

I don’t know what the right answer is really. There appears to be lots of problems, though.

I feel very regretful that I used to be that way and that, however unknowingly, I made people feel that way. I don’t want to have sexual encounters with people who aren’t into it. That’s not fun for me. The idea that I ever did have that is very troubling and I wish it hadn’t happened.

Obviously I’d rather [these Tumblr posts] had been said privately to me. All of the people that said stuff...I knew all of them. A lot of them used to be my friends, I saw them all as friends because they became friends.

I don’t begrudge anyone or anything.

It felt like everyone was really angry, trying to take someone down. But that doesn’t really serve anyone. It doesn’t serve me or the community as a whole.

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